medicaid

This right here is a big doozy when it comes to the hypocrisy of Tea Party politicians:

Tea Party aligned Georgia Rep. Tom Graves (R), who castigates Washington for fiscal irresponsibility, reached an out of court settlement Wednesday after he was sued for defaulting on a $2.2 million loan -- which his attorney argued is the bank's fault for lending him the money in the first place.

Graves and his business partner Chip Rogers -- who is the state Senate's Republican majority leader -- took out a $2.2 million loan from the Bartow County Bank in 2007 to buy and renovate a local motel. The project soon went belly-up.

If this was you or me, Tom Graves would be lecturing us about personal responsibility, but that doesn't apply to him or the Tea Party people. That is evident by all their actions. They can take government programs like farm subsidies, Medicaid or anything else, but it's because "they need it", yet if you lose your job and need government help to get your child healthcare, well then you are a failure trying to live off the government.

I'm sorry, but it's total bullshit and that's a big reason why Americans are becoming increasingly fed up with the this party of frauds. It's beyond time to declare the Tea Party a cult of hypocrisy and brush them aside. Hopefully our media will listen now.

Including their deficit:

This month the state's part-time legislature goes back into session, and the state is starting at potentially a $25 billion deficit on a two-year budget of around $95 billion. That's enormous. And there's not much fat to cut. The whole budget is basically education and healthcare spending. Cutting everything else wouldn't do the trick. And though raising this kind of money would be easy on an economy of $1.2 trillion, the new GOP mega-majority in Congress is firmly against raising any revenue.

So the bi-ennial legislature, which convenes this month, faces some hard cuts. Some in the Texas GDP haveadvocated dropping Medicaid altogether to save money.

And the most important part of the article?

So why haven't we heard more about Texas, one of the most important economy's in America? Well, it's because it doesn't fit the script. It's a pro-business, lean-spending, no-union state. You can't fit it into a nice storyline, so it's ignored.

True dat! This isn’t some blue state like California or Illinois. This is the heart of red state America and God forbid the “liberal” media makes them look bad!

Just received this breaking news alert from the Washington Post:

President Obama signed an order Thursday night requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.

The president ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation. The memo is scheduled to be made public Friday morning, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the White House decision.

An official said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding.

That’s a step in the right direction, but I can’t wait to hear the response from the Catholic hospitals. I’m sure that’s going to be very interesting.

Something I have been meaning to do is figure up the cost impact of health care for people with diabetics. Most insurance policies don’t cover diabetic testing supplies. That gives diabetics an extra $100-$120 expense every month. I want to take a minute and figure up what premiums plus average out of pocket expenses would be, then add in the cost of diabetic testing supplies.

First let me set the base lines. The federal poverty level is $10,830. Those making 133% or less of the FPL would be eligible for Medicaid, which does cover testing supplies. So those making $14,403 or less per year are eligible for Medicaid. The following numbers are for a 40 year old single person.

So somewhere between 150% and 175% of the FPL is a magical cut off line. Below that line you would actually be better off to have your income reduced to 133% of the FPL, go on Medicaid and get the government to pay for your testing supplies.

I am going to stick with 1980 for my discussion on the federal poverty level because in this post it also works to exemplify the problems.

In 1980 families didn’t have as many costs. Two costs are internet and cable. Some might argue that those are luxury items, but when you are talking about a family raising children then the internet becomes a necessity. Also given the new digital television requirements and the fact that many areas can no longer receive over the air broadcasts, cable becomes a necessity. On the low end these two items can total an additional $60 a month ($20 for bare basic dial-up internet and $40 for bare basic cable. This is prices in the Cincinnati area).

Another cost that exists today that didn’t in 1980 and is very much prudent when talking about families is school fees. Schools have gone to some unique practices that didn’t exist in 1980 to recoup costs and that is by charging parents for school. Having talked to people I know with children in high school I have found out that they are paying an average of $500 a year for student fees, books and materials per child. So if you have two children in high school then you are paying out an additional $1,000 a year.

So let’s go ahead and use my adjusted FPL for a family of four I have been going on today and add these new costs in

First as a reminder the FPL for a family of 4 is $22,050. As I laid out in my previous post the FPL adjusted by the true CPI-U comes out to $24,653 and now let’s add in these new costs that didn’t exist in 1980:

Another court battle over the health care reform is brewing:

The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday.

Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state - all Republicans - are jointly taking a look at the deal they've dubbed the "Nebraska compromise."

"The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution - as well as other provisions of federal law," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.

This isn’t even limited to just red state, but blue states as well. The deal Nelson got stinks big time, but honestly these are the same types of games we have seen in Washington for years. Remember the “Bridge to Nowhere”? It’s a practice that each party campaigns on fixing until they get in power, then they fall in love with it all over again.

Like I have been saying – the survival of health care out of conference is anything but certain:

“Last night’s vote in the Senate should be applauded for what it was:
an affirmative statement by that body that comprehensive health care reform legislation should not be held captive any longer by a select few.” “As this legislation moves towards its constitutionally mandated reconciliation with the House of Representatives, I also want to make it clear that, in my mind, this bill does not adequately address many of the problems that plague our current system.  Without material changes, this legislation will be reform in name only.”

“In order to pass the House of Representatives, a final health care bill must provide universal affordability and competition to the American people.  Additionally, it should be financed by those with the ability to pay and not by working class Americans lucky enough to receive quality health coverage through their employers.”

“I supported the House bill because it included serious provisions aimed at helping individuals who currently cannot afford to purchase health care by providing subsidies and expanding Medicaid to 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.  The Senate bill passed last night does not ensure this same level of affordability; there are fewer subsidies and the expansion of Medicaid is not as extensive.”

You can read on here.

Dave Dayen summed up what Conyers wants rather nicely:

• Affordability: Conyers argues for more generous subsidies to make health insurance affordable.

This is something me and a lot of the opposing factors to the latest HCR bill saw coming the other night when Democrats caved to Lieberman:

Nelson's key points:

1. Asked if he would vote for cloture even if his initiative to restrict abortion were adopted, Nelson flatly said "no."
2. Nelson not only said a vote before Christmas was not feasible, he joked about it taking until next Christmas.
3. Nelson said unless the bill's Medicaid expansion provisions were made optional he would oppose cloture.
4. Nelson said the bill's revenue provisions were unacceptable because the economy was bad.
5. Nelson said because the subsidies which provide the bill's coverage expansion couldn't be paid for without additional revenue, they needed to be "scaled-back"
6. Nelson also that unless cost control were addressed first, coverage couldn't be expanded.

So if the Medicaid expansion becomes optional then what about mandates? If Ohio decides to drop out and leave our current Medicaid requirement at 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), does that means someone at 101% of the FPL will now have to fork over for insurance? And if the answer to that is yes, then how much out of pocket will they pay for it with Nelson’s desires to scale back subsidies?

Honestly I can’t blame Nelson for this move one bit. He saw Lieberman get exactly what he wanted, so why not go for what he wants. It’s the same thing any of us would do, and the result of a weak Democratic leadership who has set a precedent to cave to these types of demands. So don’t go blaming Nelson for this – blame the Democrats, including the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.